No matter how much we like to think we are independent or different, we cannot avoid the fact that we care about the opinions of other people. That is natural. The more important a person is to us, the more his opinion matters. During childhood, our parents' opinion is the one that we value and that affects us most. Because we want to be loved and accepted by our parents, we try to do as we are told, conform to their mores, fulfill their expectations and make them happy.
As we grow older, we come to value the opinions of our peers — that is, those who are in the same age group as ourselves. It is then that we start to experience "peer pressure" to conform to the values, fashions, opinions, and behaviors of our peers. Furthermore, the values of our parents and those of our peers are often in conflict. We ask ourselves, "Which values shall I adopt: those of my parents or those of my friends?
What is peer pressure?
The reason why peer pressure exists is that individuals within a group set a standard to which all the members of the group are expected to conform. Without conformity there would no longer be a group, since its members would no longer have a common identity. Peer pressure can be either good or bad. Good peer pressure may push us to conform to a higher standard than we might otherwise. Bad pressure, on the other hand, may push us to do something we feel is morally wrong.
Peer pressure may affect us in different ways. On the simplest level, we experience peer pressure in the way we dress. In every culture there are certain expected standards of dress for men and women. Sometimes these standards are very strict. In other cases the standards are looser but nevertheless they exist.
The same applies in other areas. There is pressure to use a certain kind of language or to hold certain opinions in order to be accepted. This is where we are most challenged. Do we remain silent because we are afraid to contradict the views of our peers? How can we keep our integrity and not end up feeling one thing, saying another and doing still another?
Good peer pressure
Good peer pressure helps to maintain a functioning society. Within a community, people are expected to treat their neighbors in a certain way without being told, reminded or asked outright. Imagine that a family blasted their radio at an intolerable volume every night from midnight until three in the morning. What do you think would happen? In what way would they be pressured by their neighbors not to behave in such a selfish manner? Should it be necessary to call the police, or do you think that this behavior could be corrected within the community? This is one of the ways that peer pressure is good. It keeps people from acting as they please in ways that harm the community, and thus in many cases such pressure restrains people from hurting one another. Without such pressure, society would quickly disintegrate into complete anarchy.
Bad peer pressure
Often we may feel pressured by friends or associates to conform by doing or saying things we know to be wrong. We may be expected to smoke, drink, treat certain groups of people disrespectfully, or keep quiet when we know that something wrong is going on. Bad pressure often is exerted by people who are insecure. They know that what they are doing is wrong, but they feel that if they can persuade others to behave in the same way or implicate others in their activities, they will be justified. A person who refuses to "play the game," however, is seen as a threat because he will not compromise his principles. This makes those involved in a questionable activity feel judged.
Although people of all ages have to deal with peer pressure, it is felt especially strongly by teenagers. An important thing to remember is that all teenagers are in similar circumstances. No matter how confident or secure one's friends and peers may appear, inside they are probably at least a little unsure of themselves. Everyone wants to look good in front of others; no one wants people to think that he or she is weak or insecure.
How should I handle peer pressure?
Like many people, you may be wondering how best to handle negative peer pressure. The exact response will depend on the situation and people involved. However, you may find the following ideas useful.
The most important thing is to know yourself, who you are, what your values are, and be determined to maintain your personal integrity and self-respect. Next is to recognize what is happening when you are being pressured. When we can see what is going on, it becomes easier to resist peer pressure. These points are illustrated in the following story. Fourteen-year-old Carmen tells of a personal incident: "My friend Tricia from school had invited me to stay overnight at her house. She was living with her older sister and brother-in-law named Larry. Larry was about twenty years old. I thought he acted kind of mean, but then he offered to take us to the park, so I thought maybe he was nice. When we got to the park, a friend of his was waiting there, another guy about twenty years old. I guess Tricia and Larry and this guy, Joe, had arranged it in advance. When it got dark, Larry and Joe put their arms around us and started getting romantic. Tricia went along with it, but it didn't feel right to me at all. They were much older than us. My parents had told me not to hang out with older guys. And Larry was married. I believed married men should be loyal to their wives.
Luckily, Joe was a nice guy. I told him that I was not comfortable with this and that I wanted to go home. He told Larry and Tricia and then Joe drove me home.
When I was home safe, I told my mom all about it and I burst into tears. I guess I had really been scared. My mom was scared too when I told her. When I finished telling her, she said she was glad it hadn't gone any further. She said I couldn't go to Tricia's house anymore. I was glad. I didn't want to!"
Comments
Not getting into tricky situations in the first place is the best way. If you feel that your friends may pressure you to do something you're not sure about, you may want to take time and think about your true feelings and beliefs before going somewhere with them. For example, if some of your friends have invited you to a party where there will be alcohol, it would be good to analyze how you feel about drinking before deciding to go to the party.
For example:
I hate the taste of liquor and beer.
I hate it when one of my relatives comes over for dinner and gets drunk.
I don't like the way other people act when they are drunk.
I think people use alcohol because they don't think they can do without it.
I want to be able to remember all the things I say and do so as not to feel unsure and embarrassed about my behavior.
What are the possible consequences of my actions?
You should also consider the consequences of your actions. You can ask yourself: How will this affect me later? How will it affect someone else? What will happen if I don't go along with everyone else? Will my actions hurt any of my close relationships?
Thinking ahead is often difficult, especially when you are in a new or unexpected situation. You may feel awkward and not know what to do, or you may not know how to reply immediately. However, you should take the time, even if only a few seconds, to think clearly about the implications and possible results of your actions. Although it is difficult in pressing situations, you should try to be honest with yourself and others about your feelings. Here are some suggestions for what you could say:
“I feel really bad about doing this.”
“I don’t feel good about this.”
“I don’t feel comfortable doing this.”
“If I do this, I know I’ll be sorry later.”
“I don’t think this is right.”
"No, thanks.”
There may be others in the situation who don't want to go along with the crowd either. You may find others echoing you as soon as you speak up. You may find unexpected support.
Other words that may help you get out of a tough situation are:
"My parents would kill me if I did that."
"No, thanks. I don't want to get grounded (or in trouble)."
A true friend helps you to be your best
If what you value is different from what your friends value, you may want to stop and think about why you are friends with them. Can you really trust them? Can you talk to them about what’s important to you? Do they respect what you value? What do you actually have in common? Are they really friends?
Friendship is important to almost every person regardless of age, and so it deserves serious consideration. In many cases, people have achieved great things because of their friends. They have found inspiration, support, understanding and closeness that cannot be found in solitude. But many good people also have been corrupted because of their friendships. What kind of friends do you think you have — the kind who help you to be the best you can be, or the kind who always seem to be pulling you to do things you don’t feel good about?
A true friend is someone who has your best interests at heart. If you are getting involved in something that you have doubts about, a true friend will speak up and try to stop you from doing it. In some cases it takes only one person expressing himself honestly to prevent a whole group of people from doing something harmful. Your other friends may just be going along because they are afraid of being rejected or ridiculed.
A true friend is more concerned about you and how things will affect you than they are about what other people think, so don't be afraid to be honest. Those people who are true to you will respect what you feel and not pressure you to go along with something you know is wrong.
Reaching your greatest potential
As we face life’s challenges and temptations, it is important to have a vision of the future, of who we want to be or what we want to do with our lives. Sometimes life is not easy, and we may find ourselves faced with seemingly insurmountable problems and pressures from every direction. It is at these times that we are the most susceptible to behaving in a way we normally would not, including smoking, drinking or using drugs.
Sometimes we only want to "try" these things in order to experience what people are talking about. However, this curiosity can also rapidly lead to problems.
A wise old saying is: "Curiosity killed the cat!"
When you are being tempted by others, try to keep focused on the vision of who you are and the person you want to become. The potential that lies within you is not easy to develop and requires an exercise of will. You need to persevere through difficulties. All great people in history, without exception, faced difficult problems and temptations, and yet, by maintaining their personal integrity and using the challenges of life to grow, they became known by later generations as good and righteous people.
You also have the potential within to reach the same level of greatness as those whom you admire. Armed with the vision of the kind of person you want to be, you can even help your friends who are facing their own challenges.
Questions for Discussion
1. What is peer pressure?
2. Give some examples of both good and bad peer pressure.
3. Why do you think people sometimes try to pressure others to do the wrong thing?
4. What can you do if your friends try to get you to do something you don’t feel is right?
5. What do you have in common with your friends?
6. What is the basis of your friendships?
7. Why do you think people smoke, drink or use drugs?
8. How do they get started doing these things?
9. In what was could you exert positive influence on others to do good?
10. How do you feel about someone who stands up for what he believes, even in the face of opposition?
Exercise: “What Should I Do?”
The following are situations in which you may be influenced by the words or attitudes of your peers. Try to use your imagination to picture yourself in these situations even if they do not seem like ones in which you would actually find yourself. After each situation there are three possible reactions listed. Read carefully and try to pick the reaction that comes closest to what you might do. After you have circled this, you may write another reaction if you choose to do so.
Think very carefully! Answer honestly, and do not write what you think you should do, but what you think you really would do. You do not have to show your responses to anyone, so do not worry about other people reading them.
1. Your parents give you a fur hat for your birthday which you really love. You know that your dad worked extra hours and has been saving money for a long time to able to purchase the hat. You are excited about your new hat; it's not like any other you have seen, but when you wear it to school the next day one of your friends says, "Where did you get that awful thing?" and another friend says, "Wow! That hat looks like it was made out of your dog's skin. You're not really going to wear that thing, are you?" If this happened to you what would you do?
a. Decide that you think the hat is really out of style, that you don't like it anyhow and you start to wear your old hat again. b. You still like the hat, but you don't wear it in front of your friends anymore, only around your parents and other adults. c. You really like the hat, and you don't really care what your friends say. Too bad if they don't like the hat! You keep wearing it to school and when you go to visit your friends.
2. There's a very unattractive pimple-faced boy in your class. This boy, Larry, acts like a real nerd. He gets on everyone’s nerves, including yours. Sometimes he brags about his academic honors, his father's foreign car or how well off his family is. He also does not get along with many of his teachers but often complains to them about how the other students treat him. One day you and a group of your friends are talking. Larry's name comes up, and they start to make mean jokes about him. Everyone is laughing. You begin to feel badly, knowing that one of the reasons Larry acts the way he does is because he has no friends and because all the kids treat him terribly. You do not like the jokes, and you feel really bothered that everyone is laughing about him, even though he is not your friend. What do you think you would do?
a. You laugh along with everyone else. You do not feel good about it, but you do not want the others to think you like him. b. You don't laugh at the jokes, but you don't say anything against the jokes the others are making. c. You don't laugh, in fact, you tell the others to quit picking on Larry.
3. You are a very conscientious student. On Monday you have a big test in algebra class. You know you can get an "A" on the exam if you study all weekend. You don't really mind staying home because your grades are important to you. Then your best friend calls on Saturday while you're studying and invites you to a party. He tells you that only the most popular people are being invited. If you stay home and study your friends will really look down on you. "Come on," your best friend says, "Who cares about the stupid test? The only thing that universities care about is your final exam grades!" What do you do?
a. Forget the test. Your friend is right; it doesn't really matter. You go to the party with your friend. b. You go to the party, but the thought of not doing well on the test is really nagging you. You leave early, even though your friends act like you're an idiot when you do. c. You don't go to the party, and do well on the test on Monday.
4. Your English teacher has asked for opinions on a story you just read as a class. So far, everyone basically has the same viewpoint. You have a different opinion, and so does Bob, the class nerd. He is wildly waving his hand and wants to share his viewpoint, which is always different. He acts like a real know-it -all, and usually makes everyone feel irritated. After he shares his idea, the teacher calls on you. Although you agree with Bob, if you say what you really think everyone will look down on you. What do you do?
a. No way are you going to say what you really think. You give an opinion that is acceptable and similar to the rest of the class. b. You straddle the fence, giving part of your real opinion but mixing it with the general viewpoint of the class so it doesn’t appear that you agree with Bob. c. You give your real opinion. You don't make the other classmates ideas look stupid, but you clearly state how you feel, even though it is the same opinion Bob has.
5. One day you go over to a friend's house where a bunch of your buddies are hanging out. Your friend's parents aren't home, and your friends begin to drink. They are passing around a bottle of beer, and there's plenty more of it when this one's finished. You don't want to drink it; you don't even like beer. You feel really uncomfortable because everyone else is doing it. You whisper to your best friend that you don't want any, but he just laughs and says, "Give it a try; don't be a baby." What do you do?
a. You drink the beer because everyone else is and you don't want them to laugh at you or talk about you behind your back. b. You make up an excuse to avoid drinking the beer like, "I'm taking medication for the flu and it would be bad to mix the two." c. You just say, "No, thanks," or "I don't really want any."
What Your Responses Mean The exercise that you just did reveals how you handle negative peer pressure. You may have guessed that reaction 'a' indicates that you have very little resistance against doing something that your peers encourage but with which you do not agree. Reaction 'b' indicates that you can deal well with peer pressure to some extent, compromising your values only slightly. Reaction 'c' shows that you don't let anyone or anything steer you away from what you believe.
Although we would all like to see ourselves as a 'c' type person, never compromising our values or beliefs, the truth is that we are usually influenced in some way by the opinions and treatment of others.
If you remember, we spoke about how change may be difficult and that we need to sometimes make a plan to address those things in ourselves that we really want to change in order to become a better person. Looking at your responses to the exercise above, what points would you/should you change if you want to become a good person? Make a plan to change this about yourself.
Reflection Exercise
Imagine that one of your good friends has a problem with alcohol. He began drinking socially with your group of friends to feel more relaxed and free, but after a short time you noticed that he seemed to be behaving differently in school — sometimes falling asleep during class, other times being rude to the teacher, and some days not coming to school at all. You also noticed that he was not finishing his schoolwork, and that his grades on exams were getting lower and lower. You want to help him. He is your friend, and you can see clearly that he has a problem with drinking. What would you do in this situation?
As we grow older, we come to value the opinions of our peers — that is, those who are in the same age group as ourselves. It is then that we start to experience "peer pressure" to conform to the values, fashions, opinions, and behaviors of our peers. Furthermore, the values of our parents and those of our peers are often in conflict. We ask ourselves, "Which values shall I adopt: those of my parents or those of my friends?
What is peer pressure?
The reason why peer pressure exists is that individuals within a group set a standard to which all the members of the group are expected to conform. Without conformity there would no longer be a group, since its members would no longer have a common identity.
Peer pressure can be either good or bad. Good peer pressure may push us to conform to a higher standard than we might otherwise. Bad pressure, on the other hand, may push us to do something we feel is morally wrong.
Peer pressure may affect us in different ways. On the simplest level, we experience peer pressure in the way we dress. In every culture there are certain expected standards of dress for men and women. Sometimes these standards are very strict. In other cases the standards are looser but nevertheless they exist.
The same applies in other areas. There is pressure to use a certain kind of language or to hold certain opinions in order to be accepted. This is where we are most challenged. Do we remain silent because we are afraid to contradict the views of our peers? How can we keep our integrity and not end up feeling one thing, saying another and doing still another?
Good peer pressure
Good peer pressure helps to maintain a functioning society. Within a community, people are expected to treat their neighbors in a certain way without being told, reminded or asked outright. Imagine that a family blasted their radio at an intolerable volume every night from midnight until three in the morning. What do you think would happen? In what way would they be pressured by their neighbors not to behave in such a selfish manner? Should it be necessary to call the police, or do you think that this behavior could be corrected within the community? This is one of the ways that peer pressure is good. It keeps people from acting as they please in ways that harm the community, and thus in many cases such pressure restrains people from hurting one another. Without such pressure, society would quickly disintegrate into complete anarchy.
Bad peer pressure
Often we may feel pressured by friends or associates to conform by doing or saying things we know to be wrong. We may be expected to smoke, drink, treat certain groups of people disrespectfully, or keep quiet when we know that something wrong is going on. Bad pressure often is exerted by people who are insecure. They know that what they are doing is wrong, but they feel that if they can persuade others to behave in the same way or implicate others in their activities, they will be justified. A person who refuses to "play the game," however, is seen as a threat because he will not compromise his principles. This makes those involved in a questionable activity feel judged.
Although people of all ages have to deal with peer pressure, it is felt especially strongly by teenagers. An important thing to remember is that all teenagers are in similar circumstances. No matter how confident or secure one's friends and peers may appear, inside they are probably at least a little unsure of themselves. Everyone wants to look good in front of others; no one wants people to think that he or she is weak or insecure.
How should I handle peer pressure?
Like many people, you may be wondering how best to handle negative peer pressure. The exact response will depend on the situation and people involved. However, you may find the following ideas useful.
The most important thing is to know yourself, who you are, what your values are, and be determined to maintain your personal integrity and self-respect. Next is to recognize what is happening when you are being pressured. When we can see what is going on, it becomes easier to resist peer pressure. These points are illustrated in the following story.
Fourteen-year-old Carmen tells of a personal incident: "My friend Tricia from school had invited me to stay overnight at her house. She was living with her older sister and brother-in-law named Larry. Larry was about twenty years old. I thought he acted kind of mean, but then he offered to take us to the park, so I thought maybe he was nice.
When we got to the park, a friend of his was waiting there, another guy about twenty years old. I guess Tricia and Larry and this guy, Joe, had arranged it in advance. When it got dark, Larry and Joe put their arms around us and started getting romantic. Tricia went along with it, but it didn't feel right to me at all. They were much older than us. My parents had told me not to hang out with older guys. And Larry was married. I believed married men should be loyal to their wives.
Luckily, Joe was a nice guy. I told him that I was not comfortable with this and that I wanted to go home. He told Larry and Tricia and then Joe drove me home.
When I was home safe, I told my mom all about it and I burst into tears. I guess I had really been scared. My mom was scared too when I told her. When I finished telling her, she said she was glad it hadn't gone any further. She said I couldn't go to Tricia's house anymore. I was glad. I didn't want to!"
Comments
Not getting into tricky situations in the first place is the best way. If you feel that your friends may pressure you to do something you're not sure about, you may want to take time and think about your true feelings and beliefs before going somewhere with them. For example, if some of your friends have invited you to a party where there will be alcohol, it would be good to analyze how you feel about drinking before deciding to go to the party.
For example:
What are the possible consequences of my actions?
You should also consider the consequences of your actions. You can ask yourself: How will this affect me later? How will it affect someone else? What will happen if I don't go along with everyone else? Will my actions hurt any of my close relationships?
Thinking ahead is often difficult, especially when you are in a new or unexpected situation. You may feel awkward and not know what to do, or you may not know how to reply immediately. However, you should take the time, even if only a few seconds, to think clearly about the implications and possible results of your actions.
Although it is difficult in pressing situations, you should try to be honest with yourself and others about your feelings. Here are some suggestions for what you could say:
- “I feel really bad about doing this.”
- “I don’t feel good about this.”
- “I don’t feel comfortable doing this.”
- “If I do this, I know I’ll be sorry later.”
- “I don’t think this is right.”
- "No, thanks.”
There may be others in the situation who don't want to go along with the crowd either. You may find others echoing you as soon as you speak up. You may find unexpected support.Other words that may help you get out of a tough situation are:
A true friend helps you to be your best
If what you value is different from what your friends value, you may want to stop and think about why you are friends with them. Can you really trust them? Can you talk to them about what’s important to you? Do they respect what you value? What do you actually have in common? Are they really friends?
Friendship is important to almost every person regardless of age, and so it deserves serious consideration. In many cases, people have achieved great things because of their friends. They have found inspiration, support, understanding and closeness that cannot be found in solitude. But many good people also have been corrupted because of their friendships. What kind of friends do you think you have — the kind who help you to be the best you can be, or the kind who always seem to be pulling you to do things you don’t feel good about?
A true friend is someone who has your best interests at heart. If you are getting involved in something that you have doubts about, a true friend will speak up and try to stop you from doing it. In some cases it takes only one person expressing himself honestly to prevent a whole group of people from doing something harmful. Your other friends may just be going along because they are afraid of being rejected or ridiculed.
A true friend is more concerned about you and how things will affect you than they are about what other people think, so don't be afraid to be honest. Those people who are true to you will respect what you feel and not pressure you to go along with something you know is wrong.
Reaching your greatest potential
As we face life’s challenges and temptations, it is important to have a vision of the future, of who we want to be or what we want to do with our lives. Sometimes life is not easy, and we may find ourselves faced with seemingly insurmountable problems and pressures from every direction. It is at these times that we are the most susceptible to behaving in a way we normally would not, including smoking, drinking or using drugs.
Sometimes we only want to "try" these things in order to experience what people are talking about. However, this curiosity can also rapidly lead to problems.
A wise old saying is: "Curiosity killed the cat!"
When you are being tempted by others, try to keep focused on the vision of who you are and the person you want to become. The potential that lies within you is not easy to develop and requires an exercise of will. You need to persevere through difficulties. All great people in history, without exception, faced difficult problems and temptations, and yet, by maintaining their personal integrity and using the challenges of life to grow, they became known by later generations as good and righteous people.
You also have the potential within to reach the same level of greatness as those whom you admire. Armed with the vision of the kind of person you want to be, you can even help your friends who are facing their own challenges.
Questions for Discussion
1. What is peer pressure?
2. Give some examples of both good and bad peer pressure.
3. Why do you think people sometimes try to pressure others to do the wrong thing?
4. What can you do if your friends try to get you to do something you don’t feel is right?
5. What do you have in common with your friends?
6. What is the basis of your friendships?
7. Why do you think people smoke, drink or use drugs?
8. How do they get started doing these things?
9. In what was could you exert positive influence on others to do good?
10. How do you feel about someone who stands up for what he believes, even in the face of opposition?
Exercise: “What Should I Do?”
The following are situations in which you may be influenced by the words or attitudes of your peers. Try to use your imagination to picture yourself in these situations even if they do not seem like ones in which you would actually find yourself. After each situation there are three possible reactions listed. Read carefully and try to pick the reaction that comes closest to what you might do. After you have circled this, you may write another reaction if you choose to do so.
Think very carefully! Answer honestly, and do not write what you think you should do, but what you think you really would do. You do not have to show your responses to anyone, so do not worry about other people reading them.
1. Your parents give you a fur hat for your birthday which you really love. You know that your dad worked extra hours and has been saving money for a long time to able to purchase the hat. You are excited about your new hat; it's not like any other you have seen, but when you wear it to school the next day one of your friends says, "Where did you get that awful thing?" and another friend says, "Wow! That hat looks like it was made out of your dog's skin. You're not really going to wear that thing, are you?" If this happened to you what would you do?
a. Decide that you think the hat is really out of style, that you don't like it anyhow and you start to wear your old hat again.
b. You still like the hat, but you don't wear it in front of your friends anymore, only around your parents and other adults.
c. You really like the hat, and you don't really care what your friends say. Too bad if they don't like the hat! You keep wearing it to school and when you go to visit your friends.
2. There's a very unattractive pimple-faced boy in your class. This boy, Larry, acts like a real nerd. He gets on everyone’s nerves, including yours. Sometimes he brags about his academic honors, his father's foreign car or how well off his family is. He also does not get along with many of his teachers but often complains to them about how the other students treat him. One day you and a group of your friends are talking. Larry's name comes up, and they start to make mean jokes about him. Everyone is laughing. You begin to feel badly, knowing that one of the reasons Larry acts the way he does is because he has no friends and because all the kids treat him terribly. You do not like the jokes, and you feel really bothered that everyone is laughing about him, even though he is not your friend. What do you think you would do?
a. You laugh along with everyone else. You do not feel good about it, but you do not want the others to think you like him.
b. You don't laugh at the jokes, but you don't say anything against the jokes the others are making.
c. You don't laugh, in fact, you tell the others to quit picking on Larry.
3. You are a very conscientious student. On Monday you have a big test in algebra class. You know you can get an "A" on the exam if you study all weekend. You don't really mind staying home because your grades are important to you. Then your best friend calls on Saturday while you're studying and invites you to a party. He tells you that only the most popular people are being invited. If you stay home and study your friends will really look down on you. "Come on," your best friend says, "Who cares about the stupid test? The only thing that universities care about is your final exam grades!" What do you do?
a. Forget the test. Your friend is right; it doesn't really matter. You go to the party with your friend.
b. You go to the party, but the thought of not doing well on the test is really nagging you. You leave early, even though your friends act like you're an idiot when you do.
c. You don't go to the party, and do well on the test on Monday.
4. Your English teacher has asked for opinions on a story you just read as a class. So far, everyone basically has the same viewpoint. You have a different opinion, and so does Bob, the class nerd. He is wildly waving his hand and wants to share his viewpoint, which is always different. He acts like a real know-it -all, and usually makes everyone feel irritated. After he shares his idea, the teacher calls on you. Although you agree with Bob, if you say what you really think everyone will look down on you. What do you do?
a. No way are you going to say what you really think. You give an opinion that is acceptable and similar to the rest of the class.
b. You straddle the fence, giving part of your real opinion but mixing it with the general viewpoint of the class so it doesn’t appear that you agree with Bob.
c. You give your real opinion. You don't make the other classmates ideas look stupid, but you clearly state how you feel, even though it is the same opinion Bob has.
5. One day you go over to a friend's house where a bunch of your buddies are hanging out. Your friend's parents aren't home, and your friends begin to drink. They are passing around a bottle of beer, and there's plenty more of it when this one's finished. You don't want to drink it; you don't even like beer. You feel really uncomfortable because everyone else is doing it. You whisper to your best friend that you don't want any, but he just laughs and says, "Give it a try; don't be a baby." What do you do?
a. You drink the beer because everyone else is and you don't want them to laugh at you or talk about you behind your back.
b. You make up an excuse to avoid drinking the beer like, "I'm taking medication for the flu and it would be bad to mix the two."
c. You just say, "No, thanks," or "I don't really want any."
What Your Responses Mean
The exercise that you just did reveals how you handle negative peer pressure. You may have guessed that reaction 'a' indicates that you have very little resistance against doing something that your peers encourage but with which you do not agree. Reaction 'b' indicates that you can deal well with peer pressure to some extent, compromising your values only slightly. Reaction 'c' shows that you don't let anyone or anything steer you away from what you believe.
Although we would all like to see ourselves as a 'c' type person, never compromising our values or beliefs, the truth is that we are usually influenced in some way by the opinions and treatment of others.
If you remember, we spoke about how change may be difficult and that we need to sometimes make a plan to address those things in ourselves that we really want to change in order to become a better person. Looking at your responses to the exercise above, what points would you/should you change if you want to become a good person? Make a plan to change this about yourself.
Reflection Exercise
Imagine that one of your good friends has a problem with alcohol. He began drinking socially with your group of friends to feel more relaxed and free, but after a short time you noticed that he seemed to be behaving differently in school — sometimes falling asleep during class, other times being rude to the teacher, and some days not coming to school at all. You also noticed that he was not finishing his schoolwork, and that his grades on exams were getting lower and lower. You want to help him. He is your friend, and you can see clearly that he has a problem with drinking. What would you do in this situation?